Five Designs for a National Native American Veterans Memorial Juried June 12

Eileen Maxwell

Jun 7, 2018

Public invited to observe designers' presentations to blue-ribbon jury and to comment at NNAVM-comments@si.edu.

News Release

National Museum of the American Indian

Five design proposals for a National Native American Veterans Memorial will be juried on June 12 at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. The public is invited to observe the designers' presentations to the jury and to comment at NNAVM-comments@si.edu.

Few outside Indian Country and the military know that Native Americans have willingly served the U.S. armed forces since the American revolution and in numbers today that exceed the percentage of any other population group. To recognize their extraordinary service, Congress charged the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian to build a National Native American Veterans Memorial to give “all Americans the opportunity to learn of the proud and courageous tradition of service of Native Americans in the Armed Forces of the United States.” The Veterans Memorial will be located on the museum's grounds on the National Mall.

The museum opened an international design competition for the memorial on Veterans Day 2017. The competition drew 413 registrations from five continents, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. A blue-ribbon jury of Native and non-Native artists, designers, scholars and veterans examined 120 completed submittals resulting in the final five design concepts. From the five final designs, only one will be selected for the memorial.

Harvey Pratt (Cheyenne /Arapaho)a multi-media artist and leading forensic artist, retired as the police forensic artist for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation

For complete information about the National Native American Veterans Memorial, please consult the museum's website at: AmericanIndian.si.edu.

FOR PRESS: The designers are only available on June 12 for press interviews. To arrange interviews, contact Eileen Maxwell from the museum's press office: maxwelle@si.edu, 202-633-6615 (office) 202-436-6805 (cell).

Hi-res images of the final designs from different angels and elevations along with each design teams’ statement are available here:

Lieutenant Childers received the honor because, working under heavy enemy fire, he wiped out two German machine gun nests near Oliveto, Italy, killing enemy snipers and capturing an artillery observer.